Sunday, September 10, 2017

Controversy in Fiction: Christianity vs. Intellectualism

Last
year, I started a mini-series called Controversy in Fiction. Each post
can stand alone and discusses a fiction-related topic with differing, often
controversial opinions. Now I’m here to continue the discussion, starting off
with a couple things that I’m particularly passionate about—Christianity and
intellectualism.

Observation

Before
the separation of church and state, there was the separation of church and
science. The main principle behind the separation was that religious beliefs
should not determine the principles of science. As a Christian, I firmly
believe in creationism, and I’ve always been curious, particularly when it
comes to science, psychology, and literature.

But
today, it’s incredibly hard to be a Christian and an intellect simultaneously,
especially when a lot of non-Christians claim that in order to have faith, one
must be stupid. It’s almost as though Christianity and intellectualism are
pitted against each other. Faith versus fact. Is it possible to be religious
and intellectual simultaneous?

Disclaimer:
This post may contain controversial opinions that are not necessarily the same
as those of readers. While my personal experiences come from a Christian
perspective, I have done my best to remain objective and mean no offense.
Similarly, I do not claim to know everything, but I have done my best to
research this topic.

Hypothesis:
Life is Short

In
light of the age of the Earth, whether you believe it’s several thousand years
old or several billion, an individual lifespan is minuscule in comparison. One
such quote about life comes from one of its most memorable villains:

“Life’s
but a walking shadow, a poor player,That
struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And
then is heard no more. It is a taleTold
by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying
nothing.”(Macbeth,
Macbeth)

In
life, many people search for meaning. But it’s not always so easy to find.
While secularists’ opinions on the meaning of life may differ (and I cannot
claim to know their opinions), Christians tend to view life as a means to serve
God by loving and serving Him and loving and serving their fellow humans.

But
despite their belief in purpose, Christians may still experience doubt. Take
the book of Job for example. In this particular book in the Bible, the book’s
namesake, Job, though a righteous man, loses everything, his belongings, his
children, his health. Instead of comforting him, his friends berate him,
claiming he must have sinned for God to punish him. According to David
Bevington’s The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Macbeth’s speech contains
several “biblical echoes” including passages from Psalms and Job. For example—

“Mortals,
born of woman,are of few days and full of trouble.They spring up like flowers and
wither away;like fleeting shadows, they do not
endure.”(Job,
Job 14:1-2)

Whether
you’re a Christian or not, men and women both die. Life is short. But that’s
not to say that we cannot live without purpose. What is yours?

Evidence:
The Progression of Providence

I
enjoy BBC’s adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I really do. But in a
way, I hope it ends with the fourth season. While Season 3 had a lot of people
questioning Sherlock’s overly emotional state, Season Season 4 had me cringing,
A LOT, especially when it came to the negative portrayal of religion.

John:
Godfather. We’d like you to be godfather.

Sherlock:
God is a ludicrous fiction dreamt up by inadequates who abnegate all
responsibility to an invisible magic friend.

(Sherlock,
“The Six Thatchers”)

While
Sherlock and Mycroft may not get along, they sure share a lot of opinions when
it comes to religion.

Mycroft:
Heaven may be a fantasy for the credulous and the afraid. But I can give you a
map reference for hell.

(Sherlock,
“The Final Problem”)

That’s
not even including what Moriarty had to say on the matter of religion.

The
Holmes brothers do not believe in a God or an afterlife. Fine. I don’t have to
agree with everything they say. But it seems like BBC ignores some of the
aspects of Sherlock Holmes’ original character—namely, his agnosticism. Rather
than claiming a particular religion let alone a belief in a Christian God, the
Holmes in Doyle’s books advocated for science and deduction but was open to the
possibility of religion.

“‘My
dear fellow,’ said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his
lodgings at Baker Street, ‘life is infinitely stranger than anything which the
mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are
really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand
in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at
the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings,
the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation,
and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its
conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.’”(The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, “The Case of Identity”)

If
one of the world’s smartest detectives could acknowledge that man couldn’t come
up with everything, what’s to say other people couldn’t agree with him?

“‘There
is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,’ said [Holmes],
leaning with his back against the shutters. ‘It can be built up as an exact
science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence
seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires,
our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But
this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life,
not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say
again that we have much to hope from the flowers.’”(The
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, “The Naval Treaty”)

If
you ask me, I would say writers have always adapted Sherlock Holmes to their
times and their own beliefs. According to Professor Richard J. Evans, most
Victorians “believed that the Bible was the best, indeed in many cases the only
guide to a moral life.” But as more discoveries were made, more and more people
have come to doubt religion and instead put their faith in the sciences.

“Yet
in the longer run, the greatest threat to faith was to be posted by science.
[…] whether Darwin liked it or not, the popular debate on his theory of
evolution pitted evolutionism was pitched against creationism, facts against
faith.” (“The Victorians: Religion and Science”)

A
lot of contemporary literature portrays a doubt in the supernatural. Take The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (yes, the title is a tribute
to a Sherlock Holmes story). The protagonist, Christopher, has low functioning
autism and is a genius when it comes to mathematics and doesn’t believe in God
or heaven.

“And
people who believe in God think God has put human beings on earth because they
think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and
they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it
will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a
zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too
much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the
world and they will be the best animal.”(Christopher
Boone, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)

Even
though I tend to enjoy reading books about characters with autism, I had a hard
time connecting with this book. While it portrayed low functioning autism in a
fairly realistic manner, it became tedious, and there didn’t seem to be any
hope throughout the narrative.

Another
contemporary example of fiction that portrays a contrast between science and
faith is the show Scorpion. I’ve only been able to watch the first
season so far, but in the Christmas episode, Walter, who has an IQ of 197, is
talking with his sister Megan, who is “average” and is dying from multiple
sclerosis. Walter doesn’t believe in miracles, just science. But Megan wants to
believe in miracles, and ultimately tells her brother that she believes in him.

Can
a person’s actions be a miraculous? Why not?

If
you’ve noticed a trend in my examples, yes, I have selected fictional
characters with a high IQ. But with a high IQ, there tends to be a low EQ
(emotional quota, according to Scorpion). I have no idea what my IQ is,
but from my ability to empathize easily with other people, I wouldn’t call
myself a genius. I’m probably just average.

Conclusion:
Christian Intellectuals

In
general, a person with a higher EQ tends to be more open to the spiritual. Most
people are not reasoned into believing in a religion. C. S. Lewis is perhaps
the exception, for he was reasoned into his belief in God from a conversation
he had with J. R. R. Tolkien. Today, Lewis is regarded as a creative genius and
serves as one of the great Christian writers of the 20th century.

Lewis
also tended to be very skilled in logic, and his stories tend to be clear. In
his novel, The Screwtape Letters, written from the perspective of a
demon named Screwtape giving advice to his nephew Wormwood, it appears that he
supports the sciences as well.

“Thanks
to the process which we set at work in them centuries ago, they [humans] find
it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before
their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above
all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defense
against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about
realities he can’t touch and see.”

(Screwtape,
The Screwtape Letters, “Letter I”)

Sure,
it’s difficult to get a sense of what Screwtape means by “the real sciences” as
opposed to false ones without examining the rest of Lewis’ writings. But he was
not one to shirk away from facts.

When
it comes to the Bible itself, both the learned and uneducated men act as
apostles of Jesus Christ. Peter was a mere fisherman and uneducated yet he
quoted from the Old Testament.

“Now
when they [the Jews] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that
they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that
they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13, NKJV)

Another
one of the writers of the New Testament, Paul, was a tentmaker and a scholar,
taught in the ways of the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day.

“I
[Paul] am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city
at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictest of our fathers’ law
and was zealous toward God as you all are today.” (Acts 22:3)

According
to Scripture, both the educated and the uneducated may be Christians. You don’t
have to have a degree or be an elitist. Similarly, you don’t have to be
ignorant to have faith. To say that all Christians are uneducated is to
discount those who have higher education degrees, whether it be a BA or a PhD.

Perhaps
one of the best arguments I heard for an intellectual’s belief in God was
during my senior year at Evangel University. I attended an open lecture on
science, and the professor drew a venn diagram on the board, one circle
representing facts we know, the other facts we don’t know. “Is it possible,” he
said, “for God to exist in realm of what we don’t know?”

In
conclusion, yes, it is possible to be religious and intellectual
simultaneously. It may be rare, but possible. The main principle is to keep an
open mind. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and don’t back down from answers
that might scar you. After all, as I’ve cited one of my favorite quotes before:

“It
is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without
accepting it.” (Aristotle, Metaphysics)

Literary
references: William Shakespeare’s Macbeth,
David Bevington’s The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock
Holmes, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,
C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, and the Bible (New King James
Version)

Let’s
chat! What’s your take on faith and science? Do you believe it’s possible to be
both an intellectual and a Christian? What are some of your favorite stories,
in film or books, that address science and faith?